Free Angel Cake by Helen Harris Page A

it’s time to make the tea.’
    ‘Oh, please let me,’ said the girl behind her, as she made for the door. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
    Alicia often went into a trance in the kitchen; it was the combination of the poor light and the expectation of whatever she was cooking. Once she was safely in there, she very nearly forgot that she had a visitor sitting in the front room and she had no idea how long had gone by when she jerked back to the realization that the kitchen was full of steam and the kettle was screeching. She hastily bundled the pot of tea together, covered it with the better cosy and carried it back through the hall as quickly as she could. My goodness, she thought in a panic, that girl has had time to pocket every ornament in the place.
    Her darkest fears were confirmed as she came into thefront-room doorway for, instead of sitting waiting as she had been told, the girl was crouching down over by the bookcase, peering at the rows of photographs on the shelves.
    ‘What are you looking at?’ snapped Alicia.
    The girl scrambled up. ‘Your theatre pictures,’ she exclaimed. ‘They’re wonderful!’
    Alicia bridled. How dare she go poking around while she, Alicia, was out of the room? How dare she not be the least bit ashamed that she had been found out?
    ‘Come and sit down,’ said Alicia angrily. ‘I thought you had come for tea, not investigations.’
    She poured them each a cup in the chilly silence which followed. She watched the girl like a hawk to observe her table manners.
    Alicia was proud, there was no denying it; she was proud of the spread which she set before them. As well as the fancies, she had bought a packet of cream wafers which came in three colours. The tea-table was a sight to behold.
    She offered the girl the plate of fancies. ‘Go on,’ she said gruffly. ‘Treat yourself.’
    The girl took a chocolate one. Alicia was so overjoyed that she had not taken the only pink one, which she had set her heart on since Saturday, that she very nearly forgave her for prying.
    ‘You’re interested in theatrical things then, are you?’ she asked conciliatingly. She picked up her cake politely and bit delicately into the first corner of pink icing in an ecstasy of delight which nearly blotted out the girl’s answer.
    ‘Well, old things generally,’ the girl answered.
    Alicia’s first mouthful was quite spoilt. She put the cake down, and gave a harsh laugh. ‘Well, that includes me too, I suppose,’ she said nastily.
    She did enjoy watching the girl blush. But she was not prepared for her answer.
    ‘Oh, please don’t get me wrong, Mrs Queripel. But I
am
interested in your memories.’
    Alicia snapped, ‘Well, you shouldn’t be.’ She was going to add, ‘My memories are
my
business,’ but she decided it might be too harsh when she noticed the girl’s desperately upset expression. Goodness, she thought fleetingly, who’ssupposed to be jollying up whom? Instead she asked her, ‘And that’s what led you to go prying among my pictures?’
    ‘I was looking to see if I could tell which one was you,’ the girl confessed.
    Alicia paused. She had picked the sugar rosette off her fancy and she held it between her finger-tips. ‘And,’ she asked coyly, ‘could you?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ said the girl in a rush of eager reassurance. ‘Oh yes, in every one.’
    Alicia popped the rosette into her mouth and crunched it deliciously to bits.
    They ate for a while in silence; the girl did not seem to be making much headway with her fancy. It was Alicia who broke the silence by asking after a minute or two, ‘This flat of yours – is it decently decorated?’
    ‘Well, it’s not to my taste,’ said the girl.
    ‘Oh, I know what furnished rooms can be like,’ said Alicia. She could just see the set for the television series: drab walls, dull curtains and hand-me-down furniture. Half visible in the background, she even imagined a grasping landlord whom she called Abrahams or